Events

Links to the Local: Building a National Women's Elective History

Date and Time

Wednesday, February 21, 2018 1:30 PM
-
2:45 PM

Location

Kirkhof Center » RM 2270

Description

LIB 100/201 APPROVED

Presented by Julia Bouwkamp & Jo Ellyn Clarey This event is
co-sponsored by the Greater Grand Rapids Women’s History Council and
GVSU's Office of Integrated Learning and Advising Community Reading Project.

In 1999, when local historians first turned their attention to
women's elective history, it was generally believed that women in
Grand Rapids had not run for public office prior to the 1960s. This
could not have been further from the truth. In fact, a thorough
examination of the historical record reveals that beginning as early
as 1887 over 50 Grand Rapids women ran in twice as many races over the
thirty years before 1920.

How this information was gathered is a story in itself, but one that
pales next to the surprising accounts about which local women put
themselves on which public stages before passage of the Nineteenth
Amendment allowed them to run in any election they liked. Now, this
unique historical accounting, so important to our local history, will
take on national significance as entries are shared with Her Hat
Was in the Ring, a national crowdsourcing project dedicated to
identifying all U.S. women running for office before 1920.

Highlighted in this program will be Alde Louise Tuck Blake,
grandmother of the late Paul Kutsche whose generous gift established
the Kutsche Office. Blake made national news in 1899 when she became
one of three women serving on the Grand Rapids School Board. In 1920,
the very first time women were able to run for such an office, she
mounted a race for the Michigan legislature.

With their colleagues on the Greater Grand Rapids Women's History
Council, Julia Bouwkamp and Jo Ellyn Clarey are dedicated to
uncovering and preserving the largely forgotten but dynamic history of
local women, making clear how their early investments in community
building are profoundly linked to nation building. The Council is
currently double- and triple-sourcing its women’s elective history
into the present. So far as it knows, no other city in the United
States has a comprehensive account.